The Vashon Island School District is projected to face a $600,000 shortfall for the 2021-22 school year if no changes are made to how Washington state funds education.

That was part of the message school officials and community members shared with state Representatives Eileen Cody and Joe Fitzgibbon last week at a public meeting organized by the Vashon Schools Foundation.

The nearly 90-minute meeting drew a small group of concerned islanders and district officials, who expressed their hope that Cody and Fitzgibbon will work to provide more funds to Vashon during the next legislative session. While the legislators indicated they will address education funding, they stressed that the state has many needs and insufficient funding to support them all.

The Vashon Schools Foundation formed 10 years ago in the recession and since then has raised more than $2 million for the district, helping cover the difference between what the state provides for education and what members of this community have come to expect, said foundation President Beth Lindsay. Foundation leaders grew alarmed about the financial health of the district when the legislature’s McCleary funding plan became clear last spring.

“When we saw the education budget come out last year and heard from our partners on the school board and school administrators, we were really concerned that our job would get even harder, that McCleary, instead of making school funding equitable and fair, would really create some problems for us,” Lindsay said.

Islanders who have been following school funding news know many school districts are grappling with their budgets in the wake of the McCleary plan. At the meeting, Superintendent Slade McSheehy explained some of the changes related to the plan and their effects on this district.

The state has eliminated the state salary schedule, he said, leaving each district to bargain with their unions without that standard. It also eliminated what he termed “staff mix,” in which the state provided more funds for more experienced teachers. Now the state provides a set amount of money regardless of teachers’ experience.

Vashon was not affected in a large way by this, he said, but it likely will be in the future, as teachers increase their education and experience levels, but state funds do not increase accordingly.

“Eliminating the staff salary schedule and eliminating staff mix had a lot of districts questioning how we were going to sustain ourselves through these impacts,” he said.

Additionally, the state has a prototypical funding model, but districts do not operate on that model, McSheehy added. Vashon is allocated funds for a .5 school psychologist, for example, but the district employs two psychologists to address needs in the district.

To help address the financial shortfall from the state, districts previously used levies. Those levies have now been capped at $1.50 per $1,000 of assessed property value. This change, he noted, has not been as hard for Vashon as for some districts, as Vashon’s levy rate was about $1.57 per $1,000, much less than some districts, which had rates at nearly $4 per $1,000 of assessed value.

McSheehy also addressed regionalization — additional funds given to districts based on their cost of living. All the districts around Vashon, except Federal Way and Tacoma, were awarded 18 percent. Vashon was awarded 12 percent, a difference of about $600,000 to $650,000 each year. McSheehy warned that it is already difficult to hire staff on Vashon, given the high cost of living here and challenges of commuting. The regionalization disparity could make the problem worse.

“The salaries we are going to be able to offer our staff … could be significantly less than the surrounding districts, when it is already a challenge to hire in the first place,” he said.

Legislators intended to increase educators’ salaries, he said, but they intended to improve important programs for students as well, including special education. That has not happened on Vashon.

“To date the money that we have received in our district has all gone to salaries,” he stated.

Looking ahead four years, the shortfall the district is facing is at least $586,000 out of its $24 million budget for the 2021-22 academic year. But he indicated the district’s needs are higher than that number suggests.

“If I consider that we are going to be in a new bargaining year, and if I consider that I want to put aside more money for curriculum and materials for teachers … and when I consider that I want to increase our fund balance because we are at the bare minimum, when I take those three into account and add them to the $586,000, things get a little dire for me,” he said.

He stressed that he believes it is essential that legislators continue working on school funding solutions, even if they have little desire to do so.

“We are not done,” he said about that legislative work. “There are some hard decisions ahead in our future.”

Rep. Cody acknowledged there is some fatigue in working on McCleary itself, but said legislators would address education funding in the next session, noting it makes up more than half of the state budget.

“I have been here for 24 years,” she said. “We have talked about and argued about it (education funding) every year.”

Washington has a funding problem, she said, but she and Fitzgibbon both said an income tax is not on the horizon. Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal has called for a state capital gains tax to help fund education. Both Cody and Fitzgibbon said they believe passing such a tax is more likely than passing an income tax. Even if it were to pass, Cody said it is likely it would support more than education. She cited mental health problems in the state, noting that at least $150 million is needed simply to maintain the status quo, since Western State Hospital was decertified and lost its federal funding — and she stressed more is needed than maintaining the status quo.

Fitzgibbon, who has served in the house for eight years, said education has received a lot of the state’s “extra” funding over the years.

“Every spare penny we have gotten has gone to education,” he said. “Things like mental health have not gotten investments.”

He added that the state’s foster care system also requires significant additional funding.

Still, he said, he expects legislators to address regionalization in the next session, although he could not promise an improvement for Vashon. Lifting the levy lid will also be discussed, but he said he could not predict which way that conversation will go. Problems with the prototypical school model also need more attention, he said, and noted that special education is at the “front of the line” for more funding.

Adding to the district’s financial challenges, school board Chair Zabette Macomber said, is that Vashon’s enrollment is down by 25 students, 13 from off island, resulting in a reduction of $225,000 from the state this year. The number of students eligible for free and reduced lunch is also down — she believes because the island has become so expensive that people in that income bracket have left.

“Our situation is very, very concerning,” she said.

School board member Toby Holmes was also present and spoke frankly with Cody and Fitzgibbon.

“You are our local leaders, and so we are counting on you to represent us as a local community. I appreciate the challenges you have at the state level, but I anoint you to go fight for us at the local level,” he said, prioritizing a better regionalization factor for Vashon and a capital gains tax. “We are at a point where at the district we are going to be facing serious and dire challenges. We are at a point where sustainability and solvency is going to be an issue.”

The next meeting of the Vashon school board is at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13, in room 302 at Chautauqua Elementary School. The public is always welcome.